Filling tires with Nitrogen?

[KenHokie]

I saw a sign at Costco the other day saying that you can get your tires filled with Nitrogen and that doing so will give you better performance, longer tire life and a list of several other "good" things. Is this just marketing BS or is it worth it to get my tires filled with Nitrogen?

 

[DCaswell]

Local TV station did a feature on nitrogen in tires, consensus was just another marketing tool (profit enhancer)

 

[MGordon]

The air we breath is already 79% Nitrogen. Besides, if you ever have to top off your tires, you contaminate that pure nitrogen. Sounds like a waste of time and money to me.

 

[JGK]

But I'm sure it's good for another 5 or 10 HP and a half mile per gallon fuel savings. :-laf



-Jay

 

[CarlJensen]

All our aircraft tires are filled with nitrogen for a couple of reasons. The nitrogen is inert and dry, reduces corrosion on the rims, which are made of alloy. Fire suppression in case of bad things happening. Neither of these things have a thing to do with our machines.

 

[willyslover]

the nitrogen will not bleed off through the rubber compound of the tire like air will... will run cooler by a few degrees [heat is the killer of the tires] will hold a better pressure as it doesn't expand like air does. . it will mix well with air in emergency [for airing up low pressure tire]... but if your doing rotations [free lifetime at Costco with tire purchas] there shouldn't be any need to air up and if you do need some pressure adj. just drop back to Costco



There isn't any charge to the menber for this service [Costco strives to add value to the membership and this is a value added issue]



it isn't done at most tire dealers do to the cost of the equipnent [about 2K per location I'm told]...



it is highly recommended by tire manufacturers for better service life of tires and a safety factor



for the nay sayers suggest you do your homework . . and the TV guys didn't do a complete job in their research. . they went to several tire shops who didn't have equipment and asked questions, go figure. .

 

[scootergmc]

As long as you maintain proper pressure with air and rotate regularly, there will be no problems with regular air. If you're racing and you want you pressures to fluxuate less under high heat and hard driving, then nitrogen is your route. The only people I know who use nitrogen on a regular basis are some hard-core motorcycle trackday enthusiasts. Other than racers, those are the only people I know who use it. And oxygen is good enough for me at the track. So it's good enough for my truck. Basically you can be lazier with nitrogen. Other than that, have fun driving all that way to a costco just to get nitrogen.

 

[nieters]

nitrogen?? you mean the stuff we huff?? who knew it had other uses. lol

 

[JL penner]

You're thinking of Nirtrous Oxide. If you huff just plain ole pure Nitrogen you won't get a high, you'll just die. Hey, I rymed!!

 

[Crazy Horse]

What about Helium? Lighten upthe truck, help lift it off the ground. Less rolling resistance=better mpg's. :-laf :-laf

 

[McCRam]

But if you didn't put the same amount of helium in both sides, the truck would flip easier.

 

[Crazy Horse]

Then we should get the Government involved for certification .

 

[rluft]

I thought I read that NASCAR team use N in their tires.